Thursday, May 16, 2013

And... Still Nothing.

Tomorrow is our due date, and still very little sign that this baby is ready to come out. We had our 40-week appointment today. Things are *sort of* progressing- I'm finally a tiny bit dilated and 90% effaced. I still have the feeling, though, that this little guy is just really comfortable and not quite ready to consider departure.

I've been having some bad acid reflux this evening, and a queasy day. For the last week and a half I've had a voracious appetite, where I felt like I just couldn't get enough to eat and my stomach would growl within 30 minutes of eating something. Today I haven't really felt like eating anything. David took me out after the doctor appointment to walk around the mall and have lunch, and I was sad because nothing sounded appealing. We got two of our very favorite things- fries from Chik-fil-A and a chicken salad croissant from La Madeleine- and I still only managed about 4 bites of each thing. (Plus, hooray for pay-day! It was nice to be able to *afford* for me to not eat our favorite things....)

While we were at La Madeleine, I was sitting at a little table waiting for David to order the food, and an elderly man walked up and wanted to know if he could join me. Weird, and interesting. I said "Sure", so he had a seat. His name is Bruce, and talking to him was a very interesting experience. He talked almost non-stop for about an hour to David and I. He mostly talked about how he was a "psychic" (not in the money-making way, though- just in the quirky way) and about his wife who had passed away a couple years ago. He was saying that he lived not far from the mall in a senior home, and because of the storm last night he had no power in his apartment to cook breakfast. Plus, he hadn't been out of the apartment since Sunday. I was pretty sad for him, and glad that we could give him some company for a while. He kind of reminded me of a slightly crazier version of my own dad- and if my dad was feeling lonely (and I couldn't be there for him) I would hope someone would spend time listening to his stories about picking out dishes with his wife and all.

Going to the mall also reminds me of my mom. It was one of my favorite places to take her in the last couple years of her life, and it seemed to make her day when we would go. She LOVED shopping, and she would usually say something along the lines of "Well thanks for bringing me. This is one of the few times I've gotten to leave the house lately." (Which was totally untrue by the way- I have never known anyone with more plans involving being out of the house as much as possible as my mother....) Northpark Mall in particular was a place I took her a few times- especially when my niece Shayce was a baby and my mom watched her every day. It's a very baby-friendly mall. One time we went and took Shayce to lunch at the mall. Mom wasn't sure what to get Shayce for lunch, so I got her a little bag of garlic bread bites with marinara sauce for dipping from the Italian place in the food court. We sat and nibbled at our own food, but mostly just watched Shayce and her love of "dipping"- she would dip her bread in the sauce, and then just lick the sauce off and repeat. I think Shayce was only a little over a year old then. It was a really fun day together. Both Shayce and Grammy were pretty much guaranteed to have a happy time if we were at the mall.